


Corduroy Lines

by AntivanCrafts



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Disabled Character, Emotional Constipation, F/F, Leliana needs to invest in a new set of coping skills tbh maybe some soothing music, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 09:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntivanCrafts/pseuds/AntivanCrafts
Summary: Solenli Adaar's life is filled with ill-defined lines that she can't -or won't- cross, but she won't allow herself to let her relationship with Leliana become one more sacrifice on the altar of everything she has lost.





	Corduroy Lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morrezela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/gifts).



> A certain subset of readers might recognize the description of Solenli's disability as sounding strikingly similar to cerebral palsy, and that's because its meant to. This fic is an indirect gift to a very dear friend of mine, as well as to disabled fans who may feel they'll never have a happily ever after. This is for you, and for me.

Solenli Adaar had never felt every ounce of her characteristic self-consciousness more keenly than she did when she stood over Leliana’s desk in Skyhold’s rookery. The hand carved desk was small and neat in much the way Leliana herself was, whereas Solenli… was not. Solenli was tall, and Solenli was loud, and Solenli was impossible to miss. Her spine listed to the side in a curve that was accompanied with how she kept one arm tucked up against her chest with her hand bent. Added to this, she often slurred or stumbled over words and had a noticeable unsteadiness to her gait that worsened when she was tired or in bad weather.

Altogether, it made Solenli bite her lip and watch Leliana write for several minutes. It became a sort of contest between them, too see who would break first to acknowledge Solenli’s presence, which didn't do much for her building unease. This conversation had been a long time in coming, but that didn't make it one bit easier to start. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other for a moment before she gave in and pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh.

When she glanced back up, Leliana’s shoulders had gone stiff, and if possible, even more unwelcoming. “Is there something you needed?” Leliana set aside her quill pen and grabbed a pinch of sand to sprinkle across the wet ink she had just written.

“Um.” Solenli watched Leliana pick her pen back up and scratch it across the parchment. “I- Would it be-” She forced herself to stop and draw in air in a room that suddenly felt too confining and full of dead air before she felt she could continue. “Would it be asking too much for you to actually talk with me today?”

Leliana’s mouth twisted and she jerked her head away from Solenli and towards the sea of missives on her desk. “You have more important things to do than gossip, inquisitor,” she said without looking up from her writing. “We both do.”

Solenli stiffened, eyes widening and then narrowing. With an effort, she managed to keep her breathing slow and even, but she wasn't foolish enough to think that Leliana had missed her reaction.

 _Inquisitor._   

This was hardly first time Leliana had deliberately put distance between them by making use of Solenli’s title, but this time it jabbed a lance of pain between her ribs. Every meeting the pair of them had shared over the days and weeks had very much been a dance, one that Solenli poorly understood. “That's it then, is it?” Despite herself, Solenli could feel her throat closing up with the treacherous beginnings of a hitched breath. She ground the sharp nails many called claws into her palm and watched as Leliana’s quill pen stopped at last. But still, she did not lift her eyes away from that thrice damned missive.

"I do not know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to get angry at me!” The words burst out of Solenli with all of the unstoppability of the anchor’s light, pulling her up and out of her seat after them. “Yell or break something! Break that Maker’s blasted silence and _talk_ to me, Ana. Please,” Solenli added, quieter. Almost hushed. Her shoulders sagged, and Solenli closed her eyes shut tight so that she wouldn’t have to see the look on Leliana’s face. “I am tired of half words. Tired of dancing around a topic you won't even acknowledge exists. Why? What have I done that is so horrible?”

The silence between them stretched on for long seconds, long enough that Solenli almost gave up and turned away. Just as she stiffened her jaw at an angle that had faced down demons and noblemen and the prospect of a life without the security of Par Vollen’s walls, Leliana shuddered. It was an all body thing, a heavy thing that brought Leliana’s head bowing towards a hand that was every bit as unsteady as the rapid beat of Solenli’s heart.

“Nothing.” It was almost a whisper. “You have done nothing, besides… Look at me.” Solenli stared, which was met with a laugh. Leliana dragged her hand through her hair, and in doing so pushed back her hood. This close, it was impossible to miss the silver threads shot through her hair. What had once been a vibrant, deep red had faded into a blush of copper twisted into messy braids. That alone surprised Solenli enough that whatever she'd been intending to say died on her tongue. Leliana was many things, but messy was not one of them. “You do not know how you weigh on my mind,” Leliana added after what was clearly an internal struggle, and Solenli drew herself up as much as she could.

“If my presence is that much of a burden,” she started, then stopped when Leliana held up a hand.

"You weren't listening. Or I didn't explain myself well enough. It's… You remind me of…” Leliana didn't finish that sentence, but she didn't have to. Solenli knew who she was talking about.

She had heard more than a few whispers since arriving in Skyhold of Leliana’s famous lover, the Hero of Fereldan. How a city elf, someone who many would have called a nobody, insignificant compared to the movers and shakers, had emerged from the scorn and abuse heaped upon herself and her kin to become a legend. How she had lost first her freedom to the chilly certainty of duty, and then… everything.

It was impossible to compete with the ghost of a dead woman.

Leliana's lost love could never disappoint her, never frustrate her or argue with her or fail to measure up the way Solenli did, could not help doing again and again and again. The Hero was preserved forever in Leliana’s mind the way she had been, vibrantly alive and bright and in love, while Solenli was alive. Was fallible. Solenli could win every battle in this war for months, for years. She could built alliances, dynasties created upon the bones of the lost causes that had come before them and know nothing but praise and gratitude and seemingly endless victories, but… But. She knew that the day would inevitably come when she would not. When she would look up at the great, yawning chasm in the sky that beckoned to the magic that inched ever closer to her heart, and she would fail.

That single, singular elf had succeeded, and she always would.

Solenli allowed her eyes to slip half-closed, pale lashes fanning across golden-brown skin. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Silence, then, “I haven't decided yet. But it isn't a distraction we can allow ourselves right now. There's too much going on, too many people relying on us to get caught up in…” A creak of leather, and Solenli could just imagine the curving hand gesture Leliana was making, even if she couldn't bear to actually look at it. “Impulsiveness.”

That sounded like a tactful way of saying selfish. Solenli nodded, because that was expected of her, and then hissed out a particularly vivid curse, because it wasn't. She couldn't see Leliana’s face, and didn't particularly want to.

“If that angers you, inquisitor-”

“You're damn right it angers me!” She looked at Leliana’s face at last, just in time to catch a brief glimpse of too bright eyes and flushed cheeks before Leliana ducked her face back down. Solenli almost flinched, and instead turned it into a word she barely managed to bite off. “It… _frustrates_ me would be a better word,” she added. “Any time I think we’re getting to where we understand each other, you change the rules. I just want… Honesty, between us.”

“I have never been anything but honest with you.”

“Bullshit.”

Leliana couldn't hold back a snort at that, and Solenli relaxed, just a bit. Enough to where she felt comfortable enough to broach what she really wanted to say. “There's a saying about forming your hand into a fist for too long.”

Leliana own eyes flickered. Some microexpression chased itself across her face too quickly to be categorized before she crossed her gloved hands on the desk. “And what is that?”

“They say…” Solenli swallowed and turned her gaze down at those gloves and the layers of callouses and scars she knew lay beneath them. She had seen them, if only once, in the Winter Palace. “They say that you'll forget how to do anything else with it.”

Silence descended upon them again. This time it was broken after only a few seconds when Leliana came out from behind her desk. Solenli watched as Leliana rounded the sharp angles to stand before her. Seated, Solenli found herself in the discomforting position of looking up at the much smaller woman as Leliana simply stood and stared. It was impossible to read her expression. Then Leliana took off her gloves.

Beneath them, Solenli saw for only the second time the thick, mottled burn scars that curled around Leliana's palm and up to disappear beneath her sleeve. It was easy enough to imagine how it had happened -during that last battle against the archdemon, perhaps, shielding her lover or friend or ally long enough for the Hero to deliver the final strike that had ended everything- but she hadn't asked. One more soft, silent layer of things left unsaid that had settled between them.

This time, Solenli did ask. “May I kiss you?”

She did not dare to look at Leliana’s face, now or when Leliana breathed out an almost soundless, “Yes.”

Solenli moved out of her chair, but instead of rising to tower over Leliana she carefully, and not without difficulty, knelt before her and took that hand in both of her own. Leliana’s hand looked small where Solenli cradled it. Small and worn by time and pain the way Leliana’s face was. Solenli took her time committing every line of it to memory, then bent her head and pressed a kiss to the scar. There were words she could have said, apologies or thanks, anything to shape the simple, gut churning relief at being able to feel the warmth of Leliana’s skin against hers again. What came out, however, was a simple, “Beautiful.”

That calm expression Leliana had carefully maintained around Solenli dropped, along with her mouth.

Solenli admittedly wasn't in a much better position to respond. She hadn't planned that moment any more than this one, but she wouldn't take it back for all of the peace and contentment in the Golden City. Because it was beautiful. _She_ was. The scar was beautiful, because it was hers. It was as simple and as complicated as that. So she looked up at the open and unselfconscious surprise on Leliana’s face, at those elegant cheekbones rendered in the rose red of a rising blush, and could only marvel at what she had been given.

Maybe she wasn't perfect. And maybe she never would be the woman she wanted to be for Leliana, but it was enough to know that Leliana looked at her in this moment with nothing short of wonder. Emotion tightened her throat enough that the pretty words, the true words, were throttled right out of her. All that was left was a raspy, “Have I ever told you that I love the way you look when you're surprised?”


End file.
